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Friday, May 23, 2003

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

BETTIE SERVEERT
"LOG 22" (PALOMINE/HIDDEN AGENDA)

A decade down the road from "Palomine," Bettie Serveert checks in from Amsterdam with another collection of giant pop hooks cooed with style and swagger by Carol Van Dijk, who sounds like a sexier Chrissie Hynde at times -- on "Have a Heart," a yearning Pretenders-style ballad with horns, and "Captain of Maybe," an aching Pretenders-style ballad without horns, in particular. The highlight here is undoubtedly "Smack" (as in "smack in the middle," not the drug), a song whose many charms include -- surprisingly enough -- a whistling solo. And it's in good company, surrounded as it is by songs with hooks as big as any pop hit this side of the '60s, but with edges weird enough to make it interesting. That's why, like all their greatest hits, it just gets better every time you spin it.

ELASTICA
"THE RADIO ONE SESSIONS" (KOCH)

Now that Wire is the inspiration of the hour (edging out the MC5, the Kinks and Gang of Four), a whole new generation could be grooving to the classic dance-rock beat of Elastica's old-school Wire crib, "Connection." But "Connection" it isn't on this new collection of 21 songs the band recorded for broadcast on the BBC. And don't go looking for an explanation in the liner notes, because it isn't there. But you'll survive -- unless, of course, you don't like rock 'n' roll -- as Elastica bashes its other early classics -- "Annie," "Line Up," "Vaseline," etc. -- with the abandon that comes from live performance while exuding all the rock-star cool of the band's obvious heroes. Later sessions may have people reconsidering "The Menace," Elastica's five-years-in-the-making sophomore slump. And one or two of the early obscurities are cool enough to make you wonder how they didn't make it to an album ("Brighton Rock" and "Ba Ba Ba" -- which shouldn't be confused with their cover of Trio's "Da Da Da" -- in particular). All but four songs here were captured in Elastica's electrifying prime -- from 1993 to '96 -- including a grinding early stab at "A Love Like Ours," recorded four whole years before it turned up on "The Menace."

THE LONG WINTERS
"WHEN I PRETEND TO FALL" (BARSUK)

If Spoon went chamber-pop, it might sound something like the richly orchestrated angularity of the opening cut. But by the time the Long Winters wind their way through flashes of acoustic folk-pop, two subdued piano ballads, a handful of rockers (including one that sounds like BTO's "Hey You" and one that rocks like "Long Live Rock") and plenty of songs that make the most of everything they've stolen from the golden age of pop, the band's own sound emerges. And it's all about the way John Roderick wraps his vaguely Michael Stipe-esque vocal around the refreshingly literate, often cryptic lyrics he hangs on a steady supply of easily digested if eccentric pop hooks polished by some A-list polishers of pop hooks -- Peter Buck on mandolin, Scott McCaughey on something called a boomerang harmonica; Blake Wescott of Pedro the Lion shaking tambourine; and two Posies, one of whom (Ken Stringfellow) joins Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie on the list of co-producers.

-- Ed Masley